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Summary

Through channels both open and concealed, the Victorian economy continues to influence us powerfully. Much economic thinking today gains support from perceptions of how the nineteenth-century British economy worked and how well it satisfied wants. Contemporary oligopolistic industrial structure is contrasted with Victorian self-regulating competition; the gross inequalities of Victorian laissez-faire are compared with support for the needy provided by the modern welfare state; and some regard Victorian values as vital principles of social organisation which should be regained. By examining the behaviour of the British economy between 1865 and 1914, the present work casts light upon some of these views. It does so in a variety of ways. New methods or evidence are deployed to establish accepted conclusions more firmly; unwarrantedly neglected aspects of the economy are analysed with present day concerns in mind; and traditional conclusions are reassessed. The book focuses upon three central themes: industrial organisation and technology, wages and living standards, and the monetary system. These are at the heart of discussions of productivity growth, the standard of living, well-being and poverty; the criteria by which the Victorian economic system should ultimately be judged.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

ix

List of figures

x

List of tables

xi

Preface

xv

1 Quantitative analysis of the Victorian economy

1

(34)

James Foreman-Peck

PART I TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION

35

(106)

2 Historical trends in international patterns of technological innovation

31

(42)

John Cantwell

3 Railways and late Victorian economic growth

73

(23)

James Foreman-Peck

Appendix 3.1 Data for the total factor productivity calculation

90

(1)

Appendix 3.2 Derivation of the steady state response of income per head to railway technology

91

(5)

4 Emergence of gas and water monopolies in nineteenth-century Britain: contested markets and public control

96

(29)

Bob Millward

5 The expansion of British multinational companies: testing for managerial failure

125

(16)

Stephen Nicholas

PART II DISTRIBUTION

141

(108)

6 A new look at the cost of living 1810-1914

151

(29)

Charles Feinstein

7 Poor Law statistics and the geography of economic distress

180

(38)

Humphrey Southall

8 Perfect equilibrium down the pit

218

(31)

John G. Treble

Appendix 8.1 The bargaining model

241

(8)

PART III THE MONETARY SYSTEM AND MONETARY POLICY

249

(95)

9 Money, interest rates and the Great Depression: Britain from 1870-1914